[$] Python first()

Python prides itself on being a newbie-friendly language; its developershave gone out of their way to try to ensure that easy tasks arestraightforward to program. A recent discussion on the python-ideasmailing list looked at a use case that is common, but often implemented in aninefficient, incorrect fashion, with an eye toward making it easier to docorrectly. Finding the first match for a regular expression in a body oftext is where the conversation started, but it went in some otherinteresting directions as well.